Function and class names
Source:vignettes/articles/function-class-names.Rmd
function-class-names.RmdThis article explains conventions in googlesheets4 around:
- Function names
- Classes
Prefixes: gs4, sheet, range
Almost all functions in googlesheets4 have one of these prefixes:
-
gs4_, referring variously to the googlesheets4 package, v4 of the Google Sheets API, or to operations on one or more (spread)Sheets -
sheet_, referring to an operation on one or more (work)sheets -
range_, referring to an operation on a range of cells
This table summarizes what the gs4_,
sheet_, range_ mean conceptually and which
arguments you can expect to see in the function signature.
| prefix | ss |
sheet |
range |
scope |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| gs4_ | yes | no | no | a (spread)Sheet |
| sheet_ | yes | yes | no | a (work)sheet |
| range_ | yes | yes | yes | a range of cells |
Take this table with a grain of salt. There are a few violations of
it in function signatures, when justified, but it’s true in broad
strokes. And remember that gs4_ is also used for general,
package-level functions.
Previous use of sheets_ prefix
When googlesheets4 first appeared on CRAN and up to v0.1.1 (released
2020-03-21), it had a nearly universal sheets_ prefix. In
version 0.2.0 (released 2020-05-08), googlesheets4 gained a tremendous
amount of writing and editing functionality. At that time, it became
clear that the sheets_ scheme was an impediment to
generating descriptive, predictable function names. For example, you can
delete a (spread)Sheet, a (work)sheet, or a cell range. Which one of
these functions will be named sheets_delete()? How do we
name the others? There is no good answer to this, which is why we
adopted the 3 prefix strategy.
Any function that existed in v0.1.1 was formally deprecated in v0.2.0 and was removed in v1.0.0. Below are tables documenting the name changes, that also cover functions that only existed in dev versions, but that may have seen use in the community. As time goes on, this article becomes more of historical note.
The dev version of googlesheets4 was bumped from 0.1.1.9000 to
0.1.1.9100 when the sheets_ naming scheme was abandoned.
The last commit under the old scheme was also tagged as “v0.1.1.9000”,
which means one can install from that specific state via
devtools::install_github("tidyverse/googlesheets4@v0.1.1.9000").
Auth and the Sheet API v4 surface
| <= v0.1.1.9000 | >= v0.1.1.9100 |
|---|---|
sheets_api_key() (*) |
gs4_api_key() |
sheets_auth() (*) |
gs4_auth() |
sheets_auth_configure() (*) |
gs4_auth_configure() |
sheets_deauth() (*) |
gs4_deauth() |
sheets_endpoints() (*) |
gs4_endpoints() |
sheets_has_token() (*) |
gs4_has_token() |
sheets_oauth_app() (*) |
gs4_oauth_app() |
sheets_token() (*) |
gs4_token() |
sheets_user() (*) |
gs4_user() |
(*) indicates functions in the CRAN versions <= v0.1.1.
(Spread)sheet scope
| <= v0.1.1.9000 | >= v0.1.1.9100 |
|---|---|
sheets_browse() (*) |
gs4_browse() |
sheets_create() |
gs4_create() |
sheets_find() (*) |
gs4_find() |
sheets_fodder() |
gs4_fodder() |
sheets_formula() |
gs4_formula() |
sheets_example() (*) |
gs4_example() |
sheets_examples() (*) |
gs4_examples() |
sheets_get() (*) |
gs4_get() |
sheets_random() |
gs4_random() |
(*) indicates functions in the CRAN versions <= v0.1.1.
(Work)sheet scope
| <= v0.1.1.9000 | >= v0.1.1.9100 |
|---|---|
sheets_append() |
sheet_append() |
sheets_sheet_add() |
sheet_add() |
sheets_sheet_copy() |
sheet_copy() |
sheets_sheet_delete() |
sheet_delete() |
sheets_sheet_names() |
sheet_names() |
sheets_sheet_properties() |
sheet_properties() |
sheets_sheet_relocate() |
sheet_relocate() |
sheets_sheet_rename() |
sheet_rename() |
sheets_sheet_resize() |
sheet_resize() |
sheets_sheets() (*) |
sheet_names() |
sheets_write() |
sheet_write() |
(*) indicates functions in the CRAN versions <= v0.1.1.
Range scope
| <= v0.1.1.9000 | >= v0.1.1.9100 |
|---|---|
sheets_auto_resize_dims() |
range_autofit() |
sheets_cells() (*) |
range_read_cells() |
sheets_clear() |
range_clear() |
sheets_edit() |
range_write() |
sheets_flood() |
range_flood() |
sheets_read() (*) |
range_read() |
sheets_speedread() |
range_speedread() |
(*) indicates functions in the CRAN versions <= v0.1.1.
Note: “range” can mean two things in the Sheets API:
- An A1-style range, given as a string. Examples:
A1:B3(a cell range),Africa(a worksheet name),Africa!A1:B3(a sheet-qualified cell range),arts_data(a named range). Some API endpoints require this, believe it or not. - A cell rectangle described by start/end row/column, packaged as an
instance of a schema, such as
GridRange. Most API endpoints use this.
Fun fact: The “cell rectangle” type of range is almost a sub-case of
the A1-style range, except there are rectangles open on one or more
sides that can be described via GridRange that cannot be
expressed as an A1-range string. The mostly-developer-facing article Range
specification documents all this and how I approach it
internally.
The range_ prefix encompasses both types of ranges and
each function has to indicate what sorts of range it
supports, which is determined by the behaviour of the associated API
endpoint.
Classes
Any user facing class that is related to a schema should be named
like googlesheets4_schema_name, where the schema name is in
lower_snake_case.
The internal schema-derived classes should be like
googlesheets4_schema_SchemaName /
googlesheets4_schema / list. Use the
googlesheets4_schema prefix and retain the API’s
UpperCamelCase.